Paul M. Jones

After days of protests over an anti-Islam film, American diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa were braced for further violence after Friday prayers. The US put its overseas missions on high alert.

Germany has closed its embassies in a number of Muslim-majority countries in fear of attacks. "We are observing how the security situation develops with great attentiveness and we have increased security precautions at a number of foreign missions," a spokesman for the German Foreign Office told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Embassies in North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan are believed to be among those affected.

The spokesman said that the missions would only close on Friday, though. Other German institutions such as aid organizations have also been urged to increase security precautions, he said.

Westerwelle said he could understand the outrage that many Muslims felt about the anti-Islam film. "But this outrage cannot justify violence."

The German army in Afghanistan is also increasing its security precautions. "We are assuming that we will also feel the effects of this whole business," one German soldier told SPIEGEL ONLINE in a telephone interview. "When the people here see the film, they are sure to protest."

via German Press Review on Middle East Violence against US Embassies - SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Read the article to see a Google Map of them. A Map of Muslim Protests Around the World - Global - The Atlantic Wire. How's that Smart Diplomacy working out?

With our anemic and effeminate foreign policy, we’ve ceded both Egypt and Libya to the Islamists, so it’s better to bring the Americans home.  It’s done.  Our Middle East policy has been a failure, top to bottom, side to side, front to back.  But if you must keep a staff there, the next time Islamists try to suffocate an American diplomat, let the infantry lay down enough fire to kill them all as quickly as possible.  It matters not how many there are at the gate.  If they’re there, they are a threat.  Marine infantry tactics to deal with a threat is to kill the threat with extreme violence.  They’ll think before trying that one again.

via The Captain's Journal » Marines Headed To Libya To Reinforce Security.

Education is in some respects one of the most stagnant of all major industries. A farmer from 150 years ago would not comprehend a modern farm. A factory worker from 150 years ago would not be able to function in a modern factory. But a professor from 150 years ago could walk into a classroom today and go to work without missing a beat.

via Many-to-One vs. One-to-Many: An Opinionated Guide to Educational Technology -- The American Magazine.

You must go here now: 15 Photos Of Libyans Apologizing To Americans. Good form, ladies and gentlemen, good form.

And same for all of you who mock young earthers, or devout Scientologists, or believers in miracles -- and all who say that, for instance, racist or sexist religious beliefs are contemptible -- and maybe even all those who, even politely, contend that rival religions’ views are wrong and will deny salvation to the holders of those views:

"The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others."

So says the Secretary of State, in quite categorical terms. After all, in all the examples given above, you would presumably be intentionally denigrating the religious beliefs of others: saying that they are immoral and foolish. The U.S. government deplores your speech. It’s not just that the government doesn’t endorse the speech, not just that it deplores a limited and narrow category of blasphemous acts (e.g., burning a Koran, treading on a crucifix, and the like), but rather that it deplores any attempt to denigrate religious beliefs. Religious beliefs, which are routinely used by billions as a guide to private action and a guide to lawmaking, are supposed to be somehow immune from the denigration that is a commonplace and necessary part of debate about ideological beliefs generally.

If Christians behaved more violently, perhaps they'd be respected more by the Left. It seems to be working for Muslims. Let's hope not. Via The Volokh Conspiracy » All of You Who Harshly Condemn Anti-Homosexuality Religious Beliefs, Take Note.

What U.S. interest is being served by putting our people – and our money – in places where U.S. personnel can be killed by extremists over a video? We launched millions of dollars worth of missiles to bring down Gaddafi, and this is what we get. We hail and encourage the outbreak of an Arab Spring in Egypt, send them billions of dollars we can’t afford, -- and our embassy is breached and our flag desecrated.

In Afghanistan, we continue to put our troops in harm’s way 10 years after our post-9/11 mission was complete. Why?

The airwaves are filled today with political chest-pounding and calls for decisive action. The most decisive and prudent action we can take today is to stop trying to manage governments and peoples on the other side of the globe who don’t want to be managed, get our people out of impossible situations that have no direct U.S. interest, and immediately stop sending money to regimes who clearly cannot or will not control their own countries.

Protecting America with a strong national defense and a rational foreign policy is our leaders’ most basic responsibility. But let us not confuse national security with senseless intervention where our interests are clearly not being served.

via Gov. Gary Johnson Releases Statement Regarding Libya Attack.

[M]aking a movie commenting on the sexual proclivities of someone who died some fourteen hundred years ago in no way constitutes “incitement” under any meaningful use of the term.

More importantly, the United States government has no business whatsoever condemning the exercise of free speech, the most fundamental of civil liberties, by a member of the citizenry that employs and finances it. While the First Amendment right to free speech is subject to certain time, place and manner restrictions, the fact that it might “hurt the religious feelings of Muslims” is decidedly not among them.

...

Indeed, when Jones finally followed through on his threatened stunt [of burning Korans] on March 20, 2011, despite pleas from everyone from Afghan president Hamid Karzai to U.S. secretary of defense Robert Gates to refrain, days of mayhem erupted at the UN Assistance Mission compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, killing seven innocents.

In response to that tragedy, blogger Steve Hynd noted that Jones could have been arrested for his actions in the UK--and Canada and much of Continental Europe, for that matter. And those are hardly totalitarian societies. In America, though, people have a legal right to express any idea they please, no matter how despicable or hurtful it may be to others. Absent very narrow sorts of incitement, the police here have a duty to protect the likes of Jones from the anger of the mob, not shut them down lest the mob erupt.

via Freedom of Speech and Religion in Egypt and Libya.

[The United States] government has no business giving a whirl about "hurt[ing] the religious beliefs of others" (a standard both elastic and asymmetrical, virtually begging for a heckler's veto) and that there is no "universal right of free speech," at least in practice (as opposed to the philosophical principle, which I wholeheartedly endorse).

The fact is that the First Amendment, no matter how embattled, protects a range of expression unthinkable even in Western Europe. Because of that unique position, and because the U.S. seems doomed to play an outsized diplomatic and military role in the tumultuous Muslim world, it behooves the State Department to constantly explain the vast differences between state-sanctioned and legally protected speech in the so-called Land of the Free. If the U.S. government really was in the business of "firmly reject[ing]" private free-speech acts that "hurt the religious beliefs of others" there would be no time left over for doing anything else.

It's really not that hard. The values in that film (or "film") are not our values; our government respects religion, religious expression, and religious pluralism (including and especially that of Muslims, even in the wake of murderous Muslim-led attacks on American soil); and we are not in the business of approving or (for the most part) regulating the private speech of our citizens. To the extent that that message is not sufficient for rioters, the problem is theirs.

Some liberal Tweeters this morning are pointing out that, hey, the Bush administration condemned the Mohammed cartoons, too!, but this mostly goes to illustrate how bipartisan cravenness can be. We know that this issue will keep coming up; maybe it's about time the American government, and the rest of us, develop a more American response.

Emphasis mine. Via What's So Hard About Saying, "In the United States, we are not in the business of approving these messages"? - Hit & Run : Reason.com.

If this is true, I guess it's "Occupy The US Embassy in Cairo."

Photo: Egyptian rioters were wearing Guy Fawkes masks | WashingtonExaminer.com.